Alumni Review — Spring 2013

John Francis Upcraft ’40

John Francis Upcraft ’40, who practiced dentistry in Waterville, not far-distant from College Hill, for 47 years, was born on March 24, 1917, in Oswego, NY. A son of Henry and Agnes Boylan Upcraft, he grew up in Utica, NY, and entered the College in 1936 from Utica Free Academy. Jack Upcraft became a member of the Squires Club and the Newman Club, and, according to The Hamiltonian, was “one of the best humored, best natured men on the campus.” He was graduated in 1940.

In 1942, after a year as office manager at Munson-Williams-Proctor Art School in Utica, Jack Upcraft enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He served through the end of World War II and taught celestial navigation to airmen at Biggs Field in El Paso, TX. Discharged as a corporal in 1945, he enrolled the following year in the School of Dentistry at the University of Buffalo, where he acquired his D.D.S. degree in 1950. That year, he established his practice in Waterville.

Wed to Mary Ann Driscoll in Utica on December 31, 1942, while he was in military service, Jack Upcraft resided in Waterville with his wife until her death in 1976. He later met Lois Lloyd, who became his companion and shared family life with him and his children. They enjoyed attending concerts and theater together, and Lois accompanied him to reunions on College Hill.

Continuing to make his home in the village of Waterville, Dr. Upcraft served on its Planning Board and Soldiers and Sailors Monument Committee. A communicant of St. Bernard’s Church in Waterville, he was also a life member of the Waterville Historical Society.

Jack Upcraft, who practiced dentistry until the age of 80, had his own office in Waterville until 1982, when the building in which it was housed burned to the ground. He thereafter opened a small office in the nearby Harding Nursing Home, where he took care of its residents while maintaining his own gradually diminishing practice until his retirement.

John F. Upcraft died on October 15, 2012, while hospitalized in Utica, at age 95. In addition to his companion, he is survived by three daughters, Joan Halen, Patricia Chope, and Susan Yarbrough; two sons, Robert and David Upcraft; and numerous grandchildren and great-grandchildren.Return to Top

John F. Williams, Jr. ’41

John F. Williams, Jr. ’41, who turned his athletic passion and prowess into a career as a physical education teacher and coach, was born on January 30, 1920, in Utica, NY. His parents were John F., a bookkeeper, and Edith Watkins Williams. Much of his childhood was spent in Waterville, not far from Clinton, where he was graduated in 1937 from Waterville High School. Jack Williams arrived on College Hill that fall and joined Tau Kappa Epsilon. Jokingly stating later in life that he had “majored in athletics” while at Hamilton, he played varsity baseball, basketball, and football, lettering in all three sports in both his junior and senior years. Captain of the baseball team and top scorer in basketball as a senior, he achieved election to Quadrangle, D.T., and Was Los while sacrificing an occasional front tooth on the gridiron along the way.

After leaving the Hill with his diploma in 1941, and briefly working for Savage Arms in Utica, Jack Williams was drafted into the U.S. Army. On Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1943, while on military leave before being sent overseas, Lt. Williams was married to Doris Fuess, a teacher of English, in Waterville. Jack subsequently served as an anti-aircraft officer in the European theater of World War II. He arrived on Omaha Beach two days after the initial Allied landing in Normandy and took part in the drive through France, Belgium, and Luxemburg into Germany, including the Battle of the Bulge.

Released as a captain after the war’s end in 1945, Jack Williams quickly concluded that athletics provided his best opportunity for a future career. He obtained a certificate in physical education from the State Teachers College in Cortland in 1946, and was hired to teach and coach in Van Hornesville, NY. In 1947, he joined the faculty of Watertown High School, where he remained for 11 years. In 1967, after nine years as district sales manager for F.E. Compton & Co., publishers of educational materials, he returned to teaching and coaching in North Syracuse. For 16 years before their retirement in 1983, he and his wife both taught at North Syracuse’s South Road Elementary School.

Through the years, Jack Williams coached a number of sports with great success, including baseball, football, and wrestling. A recipient of the Pop Warner Distinguished Achievement Award for Service to Youth, he was also inducted into the New York State Wrestling Hall of Fame upon his retirement. When not traveling extensively in the United States and Europe, he and Doris enjoyed spending winters in Bonita Springs, FL, and summers at their camp at Big Moose Lake in the Adirondacks with their children and grandchildren. They also shared a fondness for golf. In addition, Jack looked forward to his annual trips to Las Vegas.

John F. Williams, Jr., long a resident of North Syracuse, died on November 20, 2012. In addition to his wife of 68 years, he leaves two sons, John A. and David K. Williams; two daughters, Patricia N. Williams and Wendy Ann Scheening; and four grandchildren and a great-granddaughter. They, as well as Jack’s many friends, will miss his genial presence, his sense of humor, and his ever-ready laugh.Return to Top

William Peck Banning, Jr. ’45

William Peck Banning, Jr. ’45, a retired insurance consultant and a “gung ho” veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, long active in veterans’ affairs, grew up in Hackensack, NJ, where he was born on March 10, 1923. A son of William P., a telephone company executive, and Helen Vroom Banning, he prepared for college at Deerfield Academy in Massachusetts and enrolled at Hamilton in 1941. He joined Chi Psi but left the Hill after a year to transfer to the Citadel, the military academy in South Carolina.

Soon thereafter, “Bill” Banning went on active duty with in the Marine Corps. Commissioned as a second lieutenant, he served as an infantry platoon leader with the 2nd Marine Division in the Pacific theater during World War II. He saw action in the Mariana Islands campaign and participated in the crucial battle for Saipan (June-July 1944).

Following his medical discharge after two years on active duty in 1945, Bill Banning briefly attended the University of Minnesota and Ursinus College in Pennsylvania before returning to New Jersey. There he was employed as a sales representative for New Jersey Bell Telephone Co. and as a news reporter for the Bergen Evening Record. He subsequently entered the insurance field and, while residing in Collegeville, PA, became a vice president of Evans, Conger & Brown, an agency in Norristown. He also took an active role in Norristown community affairs.

However, Bill Banning devoted most of his time and efforts to military service organizations. A highly active member of the Navy League and a former president of the Mid-Atlantic chapter of the 2nd Marine Division Association, he coordinated the association’s annual reunions and its historical and military tours. He also wrote and edited its monthly newsletter, The Bugle, and edited Heritage Years, a commemorative anthology documenting the division’s critical role in World War II, published in 1988.

Known for his intense patriotism, Bill Banning was also an avid reader, wordsmith, and storyteller who enjoyed sharing reminiscences of the Marine Corps with family and friends. A devoted Hamilton alumnus despite his brief time on the Hill, he presented a special gift to the College in 1992, an encased lock of Alexander Hamilton’s hair, which was given by Hamilton to Bill Banning’s great-great-grandfather, Guysbert B. Vroom, and had been handed down in his family for many generations.

William P. Banning, Jr., long a resident of Doylestown, PA, died on July 20, 2012. He is survived by two daughters, Barbara Shoen and Karen Mininger, born of his marriage, in 1947, to Rita C. Conger. Predeceased, in 2006, by his second wife, the former Florence D. Fitting, to whom he had been married for 35 years, he is also survived by six stepchildren as well as 19 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren.Return to Top

Karl Frederick Speitel ’45

Karl Frederick Speitel ’45, a statistician and quality control expert formerly employed by Eastman Kodak Co., was born on September 16, 1923, in Utica, NY. His parents were Otto E. Speitel, a shipping clerk, and the former Frieda Wilkie. Karl Speitel grew up in the Utica area, where he was graduated in 1941 from Whitesboro Central High School. After a year at Concordia Collegiate Institute in Bronxville, NY, he returned home and transferred to Hamilton. However, after only a semester he withdrew in early 1943 to await the call from his draft board. He would remain in the U.S. Army for three years through the end of World War II. With the 100th Infantry Division, he served in the European theater and was attached to the U.S. Military Government headquarters in Stuttgart, Germany, when released from the Army in June 1946.

That fall, Karl Speitel resumed his studies on College Hill. On February 26, 1949, during his senior year, he and Lilly L. Quirin, whom he had met while stationed in wartime France and who had recently arrived to join him in the U.S. as a “war bride,” were married in Utica. The following June, having majored in economics and German, he left the Hill with his A.B. degree.

Karl Speitel settled in Rochester, NY, where he found employment in industrial management with Bausch & Lomb, Inc., optical manufacturers. He became manager of quality control and was superintendent of quality control inspection in 1960 when he earned an M.S. in industrial statistics from the University of Rochester. He subsequently served as superintendant of Bausch & Lomb’s precision optics division.

Later employed as a statistician by Eastman Kodak, the manufacturers of photographic products, also in Rochester, Karl Speitel served the company in various supervisory and managerial positions, primarily in quality engineering. He was a staff consultant in quality assurance in 1977, when he was elected a fellow of the American Society for Quality Control “for exceptional service to the advancement of quality control through the application and teaching of statistical quality control concepts in industry.” He continued work as an independent consultant in quality control and assurance after his retirement from Kodak.

Karl F. Speitel, a loyally and generously supportive alumnus, long a resident of the Rochester suburb of Pittsford, died at his home on November 7, 2012. In addition to his wife of 63 years, he is survived by a son, Eric D. Speitel; a daughter, Janine Kane; and four grandchildren.Return to Top

Joseph George Chanatry ’48

Joseph George Chanatry ’48, a physician long prominent in the medical community of his native Utica, NY, was born on February 24, 1926, above his family’s grocery store. The store had been founded in 1912 by his father and uncles, immigrants from Aleppo, Syria, and, as Chanatry’s Supermarket, it still flourishes today. A son of Michael and Ameena Makames Chanatry, young Joe learned to speak English in school. Following his graduation, second in his class, from Utica’s Thomas R. Proctor High School in 1944, he entered the U.S. Navy. He completed the two-year Navy V-12 program in engineering at Cornell University before his release from military service in 1946, after World War II’s end.

That fall, Joe Chanatry came up the Hill to Hamilton. Inspired by his experiences at the College and encouraged by Professor of Biology Walter Hess, he soon became determined to pursue medicine as his career. A member of the Squires Club, he majored in economics as well as science, and was graduated after only two years on the Hill in 1948.

Joe Chanatry went on to the State University of New York’s Upstate Medical Center in Syracuse, where he served for all four years as president of his class. While in medical school he met Elizabeth M. “Bee” Schramp, a nurse, and they were married on December 26, 1951, in Lowville, NY. After obtaining his M.D. degree in 1952, he was called to active duty as a captain in the U.S. Air Force Medical Corps, during the Korean conflict, and was stationed in England. Released from the Air Force in 1955, he served a three-year residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, DC.

In 1958, Dr. Chanatry returned to his hometown and established his practice of obstetrics and gynecology. He soon won the respect of his professional colleagues for his surgical skill, and the devotion of his patients for his genial bedside manner. Besides serving as president of the medical staff of St. Elizabeth Hospital and chief of surgery at Faxton Hospital, he was elected president of the Oneida County Medical Society as well as of the New York State Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. In addition, he was a member of the Oneida County Health Advisory Board and the New York State Board of Professional Medical Conduct. He was a compassionate physician, warmly dedicated and generous of his time, who “embodied the highest ideals of the medical profession and strongly believed that a good moral compass leads to the practice of good medicine.”

Dr. Chanatry, who was named Catholic Charities Man of the Year 1971, was also active in the Utica community, to which he was proudly devoted. He served on the parish council of Blessed Sacrament Church and as a member of the board of trustees of Notre Dame High School. Even after his retirement from medical practice in 1991, which brought “much appreciated leisure to enjoy life,” he continued his devotion to many charitable causes as “a quiet good Samaritan” and as a ready volunteer in providing medical care to the indigent.

An avid sailor despite “a propensity for falling overboard,” Dr. Chanatry particularly enjoyed spending summers at his family’s camp near Speculator in the Adirondacks, as well as traveling with his wife. He also enjoyed a weekly game of bridge and in retirement he “tortured” himself on the golf course whenever he could. He was known to his family and friends, as well as his patients and colleagues, as a highly congenial man who combined compassion with an ever ready wit.

Joseph G. Chanatry, a devoted alumnus and generous supporter of the College who served on Hamilton’s medical advisory committee for several years, died on December 18, 2012, at the Presbyterian Home in New Hartford, NY. Predeceased in 2007 by his wife, he is survived by three sons, Louis C., Brian J. ’76, and David M. Chanatry ’80; three daughters, Martha Goldense, Nadine Dye ’84, and Mary Mulroy; and 17 grandchildren and two sisters.Return to Top

Donald James Jacobsen ’49

Donald James Jacobsen ’49, a retired Unitarian minister, long active on behalf of civil rights and social welfare causes, was born on November 17, 1927, in Brooklyn, NY. His parents were Fred M. Jacobsen, an accountant, and the former Mina E. Scheffbuch, a teacher. Don Jacobsen grew up in Brooklyn, where he was graduated in 1944 from Boys High School. He attended Hamilton during the spring and fall of 1945 before enlisting in the U.S. Navy.

After almost two years on active duty as a pharmacist’s mate with the Navy Hospital Corps, Don Jacobsen returned to College Hill in the spring of 1948. Married that year to Delores Sefchick, he became a father while on the Hill. A resident of “Vets Village,” he was a member of the Squires Club, where he enjoyed evenings playing chess in its lounge. He majored in psychology and left the Hill with his diploma in 1950.

Don Jacobsen went on to earn an M.A. degree in psychology from Columbia University in 1952. Thereafter he responded to a religious calling and enrolled at St. Lawrence University’s Theological School, where he acquired his B.D. degree in 1955. In 1957, after serving for two years as minister of the Unitarian Church of Fort Worth, TX, he moved to California, where he became an elementary school teacher in the Los Angeles city schools. While there he also pursued graduate studies in education and religion at the University of California as well as the University of Southern California.

In 1962, after five years of teaching, Don Jacobsen was appointed minister of education at the Neighborhood Church of Pasadena. Three years later, he was called to the First Universalist Society of Chicago, IL, and served as its minister until 1970, when he relocated to Atlanta, GA, to assume the post of minister of education to the Unitarian Universalist Congregation. He held that post until his retirement in 1987.

Through the years, Don Jacobsen was an active volunteer with the NAACP, the American Friends Service Committee’s job opportunities program, and the Southern Leadership Conference’s Operation Breadbasket. A member of the American Civil Liberties Union and the National Abortion Rights Action League, he had also been area coordinator in Chicago for the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights. As a minister, his areas of specialty were religious education and pastoral care, and in an auto biographical sketch he expressed the view that for him, religion was a matter of social responsibility, of “intelligent caring concern.”

The Rev. Donald J. Jacobsen, long a resident of Atlanta, died on January 6, 2013. He is survived by his wife Ann Ehrlich, whom he had married in 1982. Also surviving are a son and daughter from his first marriage, James R. Jacobsen and Karen Jacobsen-Mispagel, and three grandchildren. He was predeceased by a son, Donald J. Jacobsen, Jr., born of his second marriage, in 1958, to Elizabeth A. Dalrymple.Return to Top

Franklin Elmer Parks ’49

Franklin Elmer Parks ’49, for many years a stockbroker in Milwaukee, WI, was born on June 3, 1924, in Torrington, CT. His parents were Nathaniel F. and Edna Schroeder Parks (later Kirsch), a registered nurse. Frank Parks, a graduate of Torrington High School in 1941, served in the U.S. Army Air Forces during World War II. Released as a corporal after three years on active duty in 1946, he enrolled at Hamilton that fall. A member of the Emerson Literary Society, he concentrated in political science and history, and was graduated in 1949.

Frank Parks immediately found employment as a personal credit representative with First National City Bank of New York. He remained with the bank until 1958, when he took up permanent residence in Wisconsin, where he carved out his brokerage career. Initially with the Milwaukee Co. in Waukesha, he later joined Harris Upham & Co. in Milwaukee as a registered representative. He was still with the firm, then Smith, Barney, Harris Upham & Co., as late as 1989.

The College has little information concerning Frank Parks’ non-professional activities, except that he was at one time president of St. Luke’s English Lutheran Church in Waukesha and also at one time a delegate to the Wisconsin Republican State Convention.

A generous supporter of Hamilton through the years, Franklin E. Parks was still residing in Milwaukee when he died on September 1, 2012, as verified by Social Security records. He was unmarried and the College has no information regarding survivors.Return to Top

Gilbert Prentiss ’49

Gilbert Prentiss ’49, who had been intimately involved with music his entire adult life, was born on May 6, 1927, in Syracuse, NY. A son of Spencer W., a chemist, and Adela Merrell Prentiss, a science teacher, he was a nephew of Nelson Prentiss ’25. Gil Prentiss prepared for college at Altaraz School in Great Barrington, MA, and entered Hamilton from Waterbury, CT, in the summer of 1945. Described by The Hamiltonian as “possessed of an artistic temperament” and “blessed with perfect pitch,” he was further credited with devoting most of his waking hours to music, especially playing the organ, while on the Hill. He not only concentrated in music, taking virtually every course offered by Professor Berrian Shute, but also played in the Band and sang for four years in John Baldwin’s Choir.

After his graduation in 1949, Gil Prentiss remained in the area until 1953 as an employee of Buhl Organ Co. in Utica. There after he attended Yale University, where he earned a B.Mus. degree in organ in 1957 and an M.Mus. in musical theory in 1960. During summers he served as organist for Episcopal churches in Connecticut. He was employed in sales by Boston Music Co., in Boston, MA, from 1960 to 1965, except for 1963-64, when he taught French and music at Belmont Hill School. He subsequently served as editor for McLaughlin & Reilly Co., publishers of choral music, primarily for the Roman Catholic Church, also in Boston. After the company went out of business in 1968, he returned to Boston Music, where he managed its choral department and later worked as a shipping clerk and assistant to its buyer. He retired in 1992.

Gil Prentiss, who vividly remembered a conversion experience he had one day in the James Library while on the Hill, when he came across and read St. Augustine’s De Trinitate, was a devoted parishioner of the Church of St. John the Evangelist (Episcopal) on Beacon Hill. He was also a member of its vestry and Schola Cantorum, its choir, as well as the venerable choral group the Boston Cecilia. Besides music, he was ardently dedicated to bird-watching and was a member of the Massachusetts Audubon Society as well as the Appalachian Mountain Club.

The College has belatedly learned that Gilbert Prentiss, long a resident of Boston, died at a nursing home in Jamaica Plain, MA, on March 14, 2008. Unmarried, he was survived by a sister, Cecily Merrell, as well as a niece and nephews. He was predeceased in 2002 by his twin brother Geoffrey Prentiss.Return to Top

Joseph Thomas Shea ’49

Joseph Thomas Shea ’49, a retired manufacturer’s representative and real estate broker, was born on December 12, 1926, to Joseph L., Jr., also a manufacturer’s representative, and Edith Brehm Shea, in Pittsburgh, PA. He grew up in Bergenfield, NJ, where he was graduated in 1944 from Bergenfield High School. Thereafter he joined the U.S. Navy, participated in its V-12 program in chemical engineering at Tufts College (now University), and was commissioned as an officer. He served for two years through the end of World War II and was released as a lieutenant in 1946.

That fall, Joe Shea enrolled at Hamilton. He became a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon as well as the ski and soccer teams. Active in the Newman and Outing clubs, he majored in economics and psychology, and left the Hill with his diploma in 1949. He had barely begun training as a home office underwriter for Home Life Insurance Co. in New York City when the Navy “invited” him back for another tour of duty, this time in Korea following the outbreak of conflict there. A communications officer, he served in Korea for seven months. In 1953, while still in uniform, he was married to Edna V. Santos in Honolulu, HI.

Joe Shea left the Navy after four years in 1954, determined to pursue a career as an automobile manufacturer’s representative. By 1958, after working in sales in Los Angeles, CA, he started his own company in that city, Shea Sales, manufacturer’s representatives, and traveled extensively in California, Arizona, Nevada, and even Hawaii in furthering his business. During that period he served as president of Hamilton’s Southern California Alumni Association.

In 1972, Joe Shea moved to Hawaii, where he continued his business and also became a real estate broker, operating as Shea-Pacific Realty. In 1976, by then divorced from his first wife, he was married to (Amy) Carol Koths Wolford, an investment realtor and also a pharmacist, in Honolulu. In 1982, the couple moved to Colorado, where they continued the business of commercial investment and brokerage management in Fort Collins as Shea Realty. In 1998, he and Carol retired to Sun City, AZ, where they enjoyed swimming, biking, and ballroom dancing. By then, they had given up their motor home, in which they had previously traveled south to winter in the Sun Belt.

Joseph T. Shea, a faithful and supportive alumnus, was residing in Sedona, AZ, when he died on January 6, 2013. In addition to his wife, he is survived by a sister, Norma Govan.Return to Top

Ralph Morton Shulansky ’49

Ralph Morton Shulansky ’49, former banking commissioner of his native state of Connecticut, whose distinguished career encompassed the law and politics as well as business, banking, and philanthropy, was born in Hartford on January 5, 1929. The son of Saul Shulansky, a businessman, and the former Edith Beatman, he grew up in Hartford and prepared for college at the Loomis School in Windsor. At the age of 16 he entered Hamilton, beginning with the summer session of 1945 when there were only 31 students in residence, all in the South Dorm. He joined Psi Upsilon, swung “a mean racket” for the tennis team, sang bass in the Choir, and helped edit Hamiltonews. Known for his “friendly smile and ready wit,” he majored in English and history, and left the Hill with his A.B. degree in 1949.

Ralph Shulansky went on to law school at Cornell University, where he earned his LL.B. in 1952. On July 8 of that year, he and Ruth Kaufman were married in Bloomfield, CT. They settled in Ralph’s hometown of Hartford, where he would practice law for 17 years. Beginning as an associate and then partner of the firm of Schatz & Schatz, he later founded his own firm, Shulansky, Cohn & Williams. During that time he also engaged in politics. Elected as a Republican to the Connecticut House of Representatives in 1959, he served as assistant majority leader from 1961 to 1963, the year he moved on to the state Senate. In 1967, after serving as assistant majority leader for four years, he left the Senate and politics, and two years later he embarked on a new career, in banking.

Appointed a vice president of the Connecticut Bank & Trust Co. in 1969, Ralph Shulansky was a senior vice president of the bank and head of its corporate banking division in 1981, when he began the business phase of his career as senior vice president and chief financial officer of Ames Department Stores, Inc. He retired from Ames in 1987 to engage in consulting.

In 1991, Ralph Shulansky was called out of retirement when Governor Lowell Weicker named him the state’s banking commissioner. Described by the state’s government and banking leaders as an ideal choice for the job because of his combination of energy and experience, he took on a daunting assignment at a time when so many banks, especially in the Northeast, were in financial trouble. In accepting the post, he called upon banks to “get back to the business of banking,” to return to the basics and find ways to ease their “credit crunch.”

After four successful years as banking commissioner, Ralph Shulansky “re-retired,” vowing to “get it right” the second time. However, he continued to be active for the rest of his life as a member of innumerable boards of banks, businesses, schools, and charitable organizations. In addition to chairing the board of Bankers’ Bank Northeast, he had served as a director or trustee of the Connecticut Housing Finance Authority, the Hartford Sym phony, the Jewish Community Foundation, Beth El Temple, Renbrook School, Hartford College for Women, and St. Mary’s Home. He was also a corporator of Hartford Hospital, St. Francis Hospital, Mt. Sinai Hospital, and the Hebrew Health Center, and at one time president of the Hartford Easter Seal Rehabilitation Center.

Longtime residents of Bloomfield, CT, the Shulanskys especially enjoyed spending time at their summer home near a wooded golf course in New Hampshire. In 2000, they purchased a home in Palm Desert, CA, and took up residence there. Besides golf and tennis, Ralph Shulansky was fond of cooking and collecting, as well as tasting, wines. He also read a great deal, liked listening to classical music, and indulged whenever possible a passion for travel, especially to Europe.

Ralph M. Shulansky, an unfailingly devoted and generously supportive alumnus, and a former president of the Connecticut Valley Alumni Association as well as class correspondent for this magazine, died unexpectedly at his home in Palm Desert on January 7, 2013. Besides his wife of 60 years, he is survived by a son, John D. Shulansky ’76; two daughters, Laura Nassau and Debra J. Shulansky; and eight highly cherished grandchildren.Return to Top

Charles Junior Standish ’49

Charles Junior Standish ’49, a mathematician and longtime senior engineer with International Business Machine Corp., was born on November 10, 1926, in the hamlet of Triangle, NY, north of Binghamton. The son of Charles F., a real estate broker, and Margaret Barnes Standish, he grew up on his family’s 50-acre farm in Triangle, near Greene, and was graduated in 1944 from high school in neighboring Whitney Point. Inducted into the U.S. Army in January 1945, during the last year of World War II, he served in the enlisted ranks until his discharge in the summer of 1946.

Charles Standish enrolled at Hamilton that fall and joined Tau Kappa Epsilon. His interest stimulated by Professors Brewster Gere and Boyd Patterson, he majored in mathematics, in which he excelled, winning both the Tompkins Prize in Mathematics and the Edward Huntington Memorial Mathematical Prize. Awarded the Putnam Prize in American History as well, and elected to Phi Beta Kappa, he was graduated with high honor in 1949.

Encouraged by Professors Gere and Patterson to go on to graduate school and pursue math as his career, Charles Standish obtained an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins University in 1951, and thereafter returned to Hamilton for a year as a math instructor. He earned a Ph.D. from Cornell University in 1954. In 1957, after three years as an assistant professor of mathematics at Union College, he began his long tenure with IBM in Owego, NY. Most of his work with the corporation was in connection with federal government contracts. Following his retirement in 1984, he continued for four years as a part-time consultant to IBM. During his retirement he also taught courses in applied mathematics at the Watson School of Engineering of Binghamton University.

Charles J. Standish, a faithful alumnus and exceedingly generous supporter of the College, continued to reside in his boyhood home throughout his life. He died on January 3, 2013. He was never married, and there are no immediate survivors.Return to Top